Science Fiction and Fact

1967
Mirror Mirror"Captain's log, stardate unknown. We are trapped in a savage parallel universe, from which we must escape within four hours or I will face a death sentence at Mr. Spock's hands." In Season 2, Episode 33 of Star Trek, Captain James T. Kirk and his landing party accidentally travel into a parallel world while "beaming up" during an ion storm. In the parallel universe, they encounter barbaric "doubles" of the crew of the starship Enterprise. Like most fictional tales of parallel worlds, this story breaks one of the cardinal rules of Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation: Parallel worlds must never interact. But hey, this is science fiction, where a little poetic license goes a long way.